La Tour Bakehouse Wraps Up the Year with $260,000 Donation

Photo: Aaron K. Yoshino

It’s been an exciting few months for Thanh Lam, with the milestone 40-year anniversary of La Tour Bakehouse and the opening of his new retail location on Nimitz Highway. But there’s another reason he is all smiles.

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• La Tour Bakehouse Marks 40 Years with New Retail Location
• A Look at How La Tour’s Poi Sourdough Came To Be

With the opening of the new bakeshop in July, Lam announced that, in celebration of La Tour’s 40 years in business and to give thanks to those who have supported him for four decades, all the retail shop’s proceeds through November would be donated to charity.

Photo: Aaron K. Yoshino

Now with the fundraiser done, Lam is proud to say he’ll be donating just under $260,000 to Hawai‘i Community Foundation, including its Maui Recovery Effort, as well as Aloha United Way and Native Hawaiian organizations.

As someone who grew up without money, and often without enough to eat, Lam knows how much kindness and generosity can mean to someone in need. Growing up in Vietnam, his father passed away when he was just 10 years old, leaving him and his mother to support themselves. “While my friends from school played soccer, I had to ride my bike into town to sell lottery tickets,” he says. But what he lost in carefree childhood memories he gained in life and business experience, which took him far in Vietnam, then San Jose and finally here. He still remembers, on his first trip to the Islands, going into a gas station to ask for directions. The cashier came out from behind the register to shuffle him out of the sidewalk and point out the landmarks and turns to make. “That kindness, it touched my heart,” says Lam. When he did the same in San Jose, the cashier only pointed at a stack of maps and told him to buy one.

Photo: Aaron K. Yoshino

Looking ahead, Lam doesn’t have any grand goals. As long as La Tour is doing OK compared to last year, that’s good. There are only a few things he really wants: to keep prices low, to support more local businesses, to use more local ingredients and to create more healthful options. “Make money while making people healthy,” he says with a smile. “That will make us happy.”

La Tour Bakehouse retail shop, open daily from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., 888 N. Nimitz Highway, Suite 105, (808) 847-4600, @latourbakehouse, latourbakehouse.com